Dakota South

“Hey,” Jack says gruffly over the phone.

When I saw his name, I told myself I wouldn’t answer, but I did – so now I’m stuck here without anything to say. The shock of him calling me still hasn’t worn off. My throat feels like it is closed up on itself, and it takes me a while to force out a single syllable, “Hi.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Talking to you,” is my automatic response.

“Funny,” Jack says without any trace of humor in his tone. “Are you busy right now? Or later today even?”

I take a second to consider.

“I’m actually out right now,” I lie. “I don’t know when I’m going to get home. Probably late, though.”

I try my best to sound nonchalant. I know Jack can see right through me; we have too much history for him to believe the lie. Still, I am trying my hardest not to give into old habits. Jack’s an old addiction I don’t need to relapse into. Maybe if I can keep up the pretenses I’ll be able to fool myself.

“Oh, yeah?” Jack says; I’m sure I can hear laughter in his voice now. It makes me grit my teeth. “Well I’m actually in your neighborhood now just driving through,” Is that what the low humming in the background is? His car engine? Well, shit. “I could pick you up if you want.”

“I told you, I’m not home.”

“Dak, look out your window.”

My heart skips a beat at the use of my old nickname. Dak and Jack, he always used to joke about the irony. At the time, I had thought it was a sign we were meant for each other. I know better now. No one calls me Dak anymore, at least, no one except Jack. I turn around to look out the living room window behind the couch, and sure enough, Jack’s death trap of a car is sitting idly in front of my driveway. He never parks in the driveway - it’s too much of a commitment.

“You coming out or do I have to come get you?”

I hang up the phone. I know Jack well enough to know he’s bluffing about coming to get me. He never comes to the door. But I also know him well enough to know he will sit out front of my house until I come to him. He’s a pain in my ass that way. Mark is still in the kitchen. I approach him; am I nervous? I tell myself no. I seem to be lying a lot these days, especially to myself.

“Hey,” I say flatly.

Mark looks up from his seat on the counter. We’re never allowed to sit on the counters, but Mark always does anyway. He’s the only one out of the three of us that seems to get away with it.

“What’s up?” he asks, but it’s a garbled mess through the burger he’s chewing on.

“I’m gonna go out for a little bit.”

Mark becomes immediately more interested in the conversation. I know mom told him to keep an eye on me. I’m still on probation. I know this seems like suspicious behavior, but for once, it’s actually not.

“Where, who, and when?”

“I don’t know, Jack, now,” I reply quickly.

“You don’t mean Jack Andrews, do you?”

My brothers hate Jack, and even that is probably being too kind. I’ll put it this way: if my brothers had to choose between paying Jack a compliment or being eaten alive by a pack of hungry wolves, they’d chose the wolves. They would choose the wolves every time.

“What other Jack do you know?” I ask, trying to keep the mood light.

“That kid’s no good,” Mark glares at me.

“Mom told me I should get out of the house today,” I cut in. “She said it’s no good for me to be sitting around the house all the time being miserable.”

“You can hang out with me.”

I give Mark a withering look. The list of people I would rather choke on my own spit than hang out with is growing increasingly longer by the minute – members of this exclusive group including Marie, Mark, and my mother. Any other day, perhaps, and Jack would be on it too. I don’t know what makes this day different, but for whatever reason, it is.

“No,” I say resolutely. “Look, I wasn’t really asking your permission to hang out with him. I was letting you know so you wouldn’t freak when you couldn’t find me.”

“Fine,” Mark growls, throwing his burger down onto his plate. “I’ll walk you out then.”

I roll my eyes. He’s trying to intimidate Jack as he stands outside on our front porch, his arms crossed and his best stink eye aimed right at the driver’s seat of Jack’s car. It won’t work, I know. Jack doesn’t give a shit. Jack doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of him. I pretend like I don’t give a shit either, like my older brother isn’t embarrassing me as I walk out to face Jack. I get in the car.

“Hey,” I say.

Jack gives me a nod in acknowledgement as he pulls away from the curb. His music is blasting so loud I can barely hear myself think. I hate his music; he’s really into screamo, which is my least favorite kind. It’s grating at my ears and I want to turn it down more than anything, but I know touching anything in Jack’s car that isn’t absolutely necessary is a big no-no. It’s a piece of shit and will probably be the death of him, but it’s his piece of shit.

I glance around, taking in the interior of a car I haven’t seen since before school ended last year. It hasn’t changed much, but I do notice he had the carpets replaced. I can imagine why - most likely because of a party gone out of control. As I glance around, I notice a familiar article of clothing thrown carelessly on the floor by my feet. I reach down to pick it up, turning to Jack.

“This is mine,” I say loudly, trying to make myself heard over his horrendous music as I show him what used to be my favorite bra. I had searched for it for weeks, never even thinking to ask Jack.

Jack reaches for the music dial and turns it down, a stern look of annoyance printed clear across his face.

“What?”

“This is mine,” I repeat.

He glances at the bra briefly. “Is it?”

It stings a little that he wouldn’t automatically assume it’s mine. I hate the implications that come with his lack of an assumption. It’s the exact reverse of the age-old saying - I feel like an ass because of his lack of an assumption. I try to convince myself I don’t care. Really, I should have expected he’d be hooking up with other girls during my absence. I should have expected that I wasn’t special to him.

I shove the bra into my sweatshirt pocket.

“Yeah,” I say lamely.

He turns the music back up and continues driving. I sit uncomfortably and wonder when or if he’s going to break the silence between us. I want to ask where he’s taking me, but at the same time I don’t want to seem too interested, especially when he doesn’t seem interested at all. Eventually, he parks at the playground by my old elementary school where I spent a lot of my time as a kid. Before I can even think to ask him why we’re here, he’s out of the car and walking away from me. I sigh in defeat and follow him. I always follow him.

We sit on the swings in silence, gently swaying back and forth. It’s cloudy out, my favorite kind of weather. It looks like it might downpour any second now, also my favorite kind of weather. We don’t say anything, and just as I can tell there is a storm brewing outside, I can feel a storm brewing within Jack, within us.

Jack swings higher and higher, as he climbs to the peak of the swing set he lets go of the chains and reaches up, as if he’s trying to disappear into the sky. It’s as if he’s calling to the storm to swallow him whole. I watch him, waiting for him to crash. Jack is always reckless, with himself, with others, with me. He always crashes, always.

Sure enough, Jack flies off the swing with his arms spread wide as if he believes he can fly. But believing isn’t enough. He flies high for a moment before gravity kicks in and he hurtles back to the ground, landing hard in the sand. He lies there for a minute, stunned, and then he slowly starts laughing. It’s not a happy laugh. It’s a cold laugh, a sarcastic laugh. Thunder claps overhead out of nowhere and suddenly it is pouring. I stare at him, lying with his limbs strewn all over the place in the sand and the rain and I find myself laughing too.

Jack glances at me, and soon he is really laughing.

We laugh at him. We laugh at gravity. We laugh at the rain. We laugh at me. We laugh to hide the misery we both know we’re drowning in.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jack says, getting to his feet.

He grabs my hand and starts running back towards his car. His touch is electric, our own miniature lightning that could paralyze me. I secretly hate myself for how he makes me feel. We reach his car and jump inside just as lightning flashes overhead, seeming to hit the spot we were just standing in. I am soaked to the bone and shivering but still laughing as I look at Jack. He sobers up before I do, but even though his laughter is faded his smile is still there.

Before I know it, he’s leaning over to kiss me.

His lips move roughly and aggressively against mine, his tongue gently forcing entry into my mouth. I don’t resist him. Soon, I am even kissing him back. But then I feel his hands wandering to the zipper of my pants. I break away from him and slap him hard.

“Asshole,” I spit.

I am out of the car in seconds. It baffles me how Jack can go from sweetheart to asshole in zero seconds flat. He holds a world record for it, maybe not officially but some day I’ll make sure it gets into the books.

I would take being struck by lightning any day over seeing Jack again.

Jack follows me, yelling at me to get back in the car.

“C’mon, Dak,” he yells over the thunder. “It’s pouring.”

I don’t acknowledge him beyond flipping him off as I walk. He tries a couple more times, but I know it’s more so I can’t say he didn’t than because he is concerned for me. His attempts are half-hearted, and eventually he makes a U-turn and drives away. I fucking hate him sometimes.

It takes me nearly a half hour to walk home. I am soaked and fuming. Mark is watching television, sprawled out on the living room couch. He sits up to see who walked in and gapes at me when he sees my sopping wet clothes.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say before he can even ask.

I stomp up the stairs to my bedroom. If I had my door back, I would slam it, just in case I haven’t been dramatic enough already. But I only have my curtain so I have to rely on my heavy footsteps to do the trick. As I’m stripping off my wet clothes, I find my old favorite bra that I had shoved into my pocket earlier before. I throw it in the trash.

I don’t want anything that Jack’s touched, especially myself.